Shiva Tiruvannamalei Deepam

Yesterday I followed something in my mind that I find difficult to describe. In everyday language, I might say I followed my intuition. But it is a little more complex. I drove to Tiruvannamalai again. It was the last day of the Karthigai Deepam Brahmotsavam Festival. So on December 6, 2022, a fire was created on this mountain, as it has been for 2500 years. Of course there is a story from prehistoric times about this. Brahman, the universal Self, divided into Brahma (creator), Vishnu (preserver) and Shiva (destroyer). Vishnu and Brahma argued over who was the greatest. Shiva appeared as fire and asked Vishnu and Brahma where the end and the beginning of the Lingam were. Vishnu transformed into a wild boar and dug, but did not find the beginning; Brahma transformed into a swan, flew high and did not find the end. Brahma, however, took a flower that had been in free fall for 40,000 years after falling from the top of the Lingam as proof that he had reached the end. Shiva saw through this and made sure that Brahma was no longer worshipped and the flower could not be used in prayer. The gods of Hinduism are so complex that they elude any brief characterization. For Shiva alone, the Shiva-Purana has 1008 names, each signifying a quality.

The procession

The mountain in Tiruvannamalai is a natural manifestation of Lord Shiva’s Lingam. The Lingams in Indian temples are a kind of altar. The statues of the gods and the Lingams are real manifestations of the gods. The mountain in Tiruvannamalai is the largest Lingam and the most powerful Shiva temple in India. Several hundred thousand people come to this festival; some say a million. A million people circling a mountain? I wanted to see that… Over the past few weeks, however, I have noticed that my relationship to Hindu spirituality has changed and deepened. My study of the Upanishads and Vedic texts has given me a new perspective on philosophy, and for me this then also leads to a different perspective on spirituality and, finally, a different being in the world. I see the world differently, I experience it differently, understand it differently, I think differently and live through things differently. So to say that I simply followed my intuition is too abbreviated. Intuition is there, but not only intuition. Ultimately I was there; that is what can be said. What brought me there cannot be said. And this unsayability of what drives us is overwhelming. Experiencing it in collective ecstasy is natural. Along the 16-kilometer path, during my 4-hour circuit of the mountain, the mantras Om Namah Shivaya and OM Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya sounded through the loudspeakers – nonstop. We walked past several other temples; at some I stopped and paid tribute to the gods—sometimes simply with a gesture as I passed. What did this do to me, I ask myself? It brought me closer to the experience of what makes us human. I was in a dense crowd with very many people and heard them calling and singing, always smiling and full of devotion. They had all made themselves look beautiful. ‘What do you think of my people’ a young Indian asks me. ‘I love them’, I said. In the night I dreamed of the fires in Varanasi. These fires were lit by Shiva and have been burning for 3000 years. Those who are cremated here leave the cycle of rebirth. The ashes drift away in the Ganges.

© Christoph Klütsch